Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,
Like cumbrous flesh; but in what shape they choose,
Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,

Can execute their airy purposes,

And works of love or enmity fulfill.

For those the race of Israel oft forsook
Their living Strength, and unfrequented left
His righteous altar, bowing lowly down
To bestial gods; for which their heads, as low
Bowed down in battle, sank before the spear
Of despicable foes. With these in troop
Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called
Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns;
To whose bright image nightly by the moon
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs:
In Sion also not unsung, where stood

Her temple on the offensive mountain, built
By that uxorious king, whose heart, though large,
Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell

To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer's day;
While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded. The love-tale
Infected Sion's daughters with like heat;
Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch
Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,
His eye surveyed the dark idolatries

Of alienated Judah. Next came one

Who mourned in earnest when the captive ark
Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopped off
In his own temple, on the grunsel edge,

Where he fell flat, and shamed his worshipers:
Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man,
And downward fish; yet had his temple high
Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast
Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon

And Accaron, and Gaza's frontier bounds.
Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat
Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks
Of Abana and Pharpar, lucid streams.
He also 'gainst the house of God was bold :
A leper once he lost, and gained a king;
Ahaz his sottish conqueror, whom he drew
God's altar to disparage and displace
For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn
His odious offerings, and adore the gods

Whom he had vanquished. After these appeared
A crew,
who, under names of old renown,

Osiris, Iris, Orus, and their train,

With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused
Fanatic Egypt and her priests to seek

Their wandering gods disguised in brutish forms
Rather than human.

OTHER DISTINGUISHED AUTHORS OF

THOMAS FULLER.

MILTON'S TIME.

1608-1661. Witty divine. "Church History of Britain;"

"Worthies of England;" essays, tracts, and sermons.

JEREMY TAYLOR.-1613-1667. Brilliant writer of sermons and essays. EDWARD HYDE (Earl of Clarendon). — 1608-1674. "History of the Rebellion," and other works.

Sir WILLIAM DAVENANT. -1605-1668. Succeeded Ben Jonson as laureate. EDMUND WALLER. 1605-1687. Poet and politician.

HENRY VAUGHN.-1621-1695. Devotional poems. Thomas, his brother, wrote books on alchemy.

Sir JOHN DENHAM. 1615-1668. "Cooper's Hill," a local poem.
RICHARD LOVELACE. 1618-1658. Odes and songs.

ABRAHAM COWLEY.-1618-1667.

"Love Verses."

WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE.

1619-1689. "Love's Victory," "Pharonnida.”

CHARLES COTTON.-1630-1687. Witty poet-friend of Izaak Walton. 1605-1662. "Eikon Basilika; or, Portraiture of his Most

JOHN GAUDEN.

Sacred Majesty, Charles I., in his Solitude and Sufferings."

Sir THOMAS BROWNE.-1605-1682. "Religio Medici," "Pseudodoxia Epidemica."

RALPH CUDWORTH.

1617-1688. "The True Intellectual System of the Uni

verse," "Eternal and Immutable Morality," and others.

JOHN EVELYN.-1620-1706. "Sylva," "Tessa," and "Diary."

ANDREW MARVEL.-1620-1678. “Popery and Arbitrary Government in England." The friend of Milton.

ALGERNON SIDNEY.-1621-1683. "Discourses on Government," in opposition to the doctrine of the divine right of kings.

ROBERT BOYLE.-1627-1691. Distinguished philosopher. "Occasional Reflections on Several Subjects."

Sir WILLIAM TEMPLE.

1628-1699. Accomplished diplomatist, and elegant writer of the English language. "Essays."

JOHN RAY.-1628-1705. "General History of Plants," and "Wisdom of God in the Works of Creation."

ISAAC BARROW.-1630-1677. Mathematical works in Latin, and theological in English.

SAMUEL PEPYS. - Died 1703. "Diary."

ROBERT SOUTH. -1633-1716. Witty divine; fierce upholder of the doctrines of passive obedience and divine right.

FRANCIS BACON, VISCOUNT ST. ALBAN'S.

1561-1626.

His "Essays" and "Advancement of Learning" were written in English. The "Novum Organum," his greatest work, explains the inductive method of reasoning, - that is, from particular facts to general laws, and for the first time places all philosophy upon its true basis. Upon this work, which was a part of a magnificent inexecuted plan, rests his immortal fame.

STUDIES.

STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring, for ornament is in discourse, and for ability is in the judgment and disposition of business for expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshaling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too. much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor of a scholar. They perfect Nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use: but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others: but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books; else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man: and therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit; and, if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not.

OF BOLDNESS.

Ir is a trivial grammar-school text, but yet worthy a wise man's consideration. The question was asked of Demosthenes, "What is the chief part of an orator?" He answered, "Action." What next? "Action." What next again? "Action." He said it that knew it best, and had by nature himself no advantage in that he commended. A strange thing, that that part of an orator which is but superficial, and rather the virtue of a player, should be placed so high above those other noble parts of invention, elocution, and the rest; nay, almost alone, as if it were all in all! But the reason is plain: there is in human nature generally more of the fool than of the wise; and therefore those faculties by which the foolish part of men's minds is taken are most potent. Wonderful like is the case of boldness in civil business. What first? "Boldness." What second and third? "Boldness." And yet boldness is a child of ignorance and baseness, far inferior to other parts; but, nevertheless, it doth fascinate, and bind hand and foot, those that are either shallow in judgment, or weak in courage, which are the greatest part; yea, and prevaileth with wise men at weak times: therefore we see it hath done wonders in popular states, but with senates and princes less; and more ever upon the first entrance of bold persons into action than soon after; for boldness is an ill keeper of promise. Surely, as there are mountebanks for the natural body, so are there mountebanks for the politic body, men that undertake great cures, and perhaps have been lucky in two or three experiments, but want the grounds of science, and therefore can not hold out. Nay, you shall see a bold fellow many times do Mahomet's miracle. Mahomet made the people believe that he would make the hill come to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled. Mahomet called the hill to come to him again and again; and, when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, "If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill." So these men, when they have promised great matters, and failed most shamefully, yet (if they have the perfection of boldness) they will but slight it over, and make a turn, and no more ado. Certainly, to men of great judgment, bold persons are sport to behold; nay, and to the vulgar, also, boldness hath somewhat of the ridiculous: for, if absurdity be the subject of laughter, doubt you not that great boldness is seldom without some absurdity. Especially it is a sport to see when a bold fellow is out of countenance, for that puts his face into a most shrunken and wooden posture, as needs it must: for in bashfulness the spirits do a little and come; but with bold men, upon

like occasion, they stand at a stay, like a stale at chess, where it is no mate, but yet the game can not stir. But this last were fitter for a satire than for a serious observation. This is well to be weighed, that boldness is ever blind; for it seeth not dangers and inconveniences: therefore it is ill in counsel, good in execution. So that the right use of bold persons is, that they never command in chief, but be seconds, and under the direction of others; for in counsel it is good to see dangers, and in execution not to see them except they be very great.

OF GOODNESS, AND GOODNESS OF NATURE.

I TAKE goodness in this sense, the affecting of the weal of men, which is that the Grecians call philanthropia; and the word "humanity," as it is used, is a little too light to express it. Goodness I call the habit; and goodness of nature, the inclination. This, of all virtues and dignities of the mind, is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing, no better than a kind of vermin. Goodness answers to the theological virtue charity, and admits no excess but error. The desire of power in excess caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge in excess caused man to fall: but in charity there is no excess; neither can angel or man come in danger by it. The inclination to goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature of man, insomuch that, if it issue not towards men, it will take unto other living creatures; as it is seen in the Turks, a cruel people, who nevertheless are kind to beasts, and give alms to dogs and birds; insomuch as, Busbechius reporteth, a Christian boy in Constantinople had liked to have been stoned for gagging, in a waggishness, a long-billed fowl. Errors, indeed, in this virtue of goodness or charity, may be committed. The Italians have an ungracious proverb, Tanto buon, che val niente, "So good, that he is good for nothing." And one of the doctors of Italy, Nicholas Machiavel, had the confidence to put in writing, almost in plain terms, "That the Christian faith had given up good men in prey to those that are tyrannical and unjust;" which he spake because, indeed, there was never law or sect or opinion did so much magnify goodness as the Christian religion doth: it is good to take knowledge of the errors of a habit so excellent. Seek the good of other men, but be not in bondage to their faces or fancies; for that is but facility or softness which taketh an honest mind prisoner. Neither give thou Esop's cock a gem, who would be better pleased and happier if he had a barleycorn. The example of God teacheth the lesson truly: "He sendeth his